The Meme Machine

154 THE MEME MACHINE
for avoiding it. Evolutionary psychologists might argue that our emotional
system was designed for the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and must be expected to go
wrong (and perhaps to produce excess generosity) in a rich technological world.
Perhaps the knowledge that ‘I will never ever see this person again’ is no match
for underlying emotions programmed by the genes in times past, but then we are
back to explaining away our behaviour as just a mistake.
So is there an alternative?
Until now there have been only two major choices in accounting for altruism.
The first is to say that all apparent altruism actually (even if remotely) comes
back to advantage to the genes. On this view there is no ‘true’ altruism at all –
or rather, what looks like true altruism is just the mistakes that natural selection
has not managed to eradicate. That is the sociobiological explanation. The
second has been to try to rescue ‘true’ altruism and propose some kind of extra
something in human beings – a true morality, an independent moral conscience,
a spiritual essence or a religious nature that somehow overcomes selfishness and
the dictates of our genes; a view that finds little favour with most scientists who
want to understand how human behaviour works without invoking magic.
Neither choice appears satisfactory to me.
Memetics provides a third possibility. With a second replicator acting on
human minds and brains the possibilities are expanded. We should expect to
find behaviour that is in the interests of the memes, as well as behaviour serving
the genes. Magic is no longer required to see why humans should differ from all
other animals, nor why they should show far more cooperative and altruistic
behaviour.
We can ask our meme-selection question again. Imagine a world full of
brains, and far more memes than can possibly find homes. Which memes are
more likely to find a safe home and get passed on again? I suggest that among
the successful memes are altruistic, cooperative, and generous ways of behaving.
Altruism in the service of the memes
Imagine two people. Kevin is an altruist. He is kind, generous, and thoughtful.
He gives good parties and buys people drinks in the bar. He often has friends
round for meals and he sends out lots of birthday cards. If his friends are in need
he takes the trouble to ring, to help them out, or to visit them in hospital. Gavin
is mean and selfish. He resents buying other people drinks, and thinks birthday
cards are a waste of money. He never invites people round for a meal, and if his